McCann obituaries/Memorials, Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana

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Name, date of obit, date submitted, submitted for the USGenWeb Archives by:

McCann, Edna Mary Magdalen (Sister Mary Clare)
                               	d. 20 Feb 1993    Mar, 2001    Don Johnson

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Memorial, Edna Mary Magdalen McCann (Sister Mary Clare), Tangipahoa Parish, LA
Submitted with permission of
Dorothy Dawes, O.P. -- dmdawes@accesscom.net
580 Broadway, New Orleans, LA 70118, 504-861-8155,
FAX 504-861-8718 or 865-8079
photos at http://www.dominican-sisters.net/stmarys/memoria/mccann.htm

                                In Memory of
                            [Sr. M. Clare McCann]
                              Dominican Sisters
                       Congregation of St. Mary
                              New Orleans

                          Edna Mary Magdalen McCann
                      May 29, 1906 - February 20, 1993

      A man in a business suit, touching the coffin of his fifth grade
                                  teacher,
                was heard to say quietly, "Goodbye, my love."

     Sister Carmelite compared Sister Mary Clare's vigorous approach to
     life to that reflected by the poet Dylan Thomas as he wrote of his
     own father's passing:

                 Do not go gentle into that good night,
                 Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
                 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

      "She had a deep heart for the poor," said Fr. John Spriggs,
     pastor of St. Agnes. When the school closed and the people
     needed someone to talk to, she was there. She and Sister Mary
     Charles saw the parish through the transition period, staying to
     welcome Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity. As long as
     they were there they kept two extra loaves and sandwich makings for
     street people, who might also get a homily on finding God in their
     lives.

     Fr. Dominic Brady, distinguished, former chaplain of the
     motherhouse, recalled that Clare had discovered his sweet tooth, and
     kept him supplied. They were fellow natives of Madison, Wisconsin.
     Ten priests attended the funeral. Fr. John Reynolds realized only
     now that "when Sister left us at Lourdes to found St. Agnes in Baton
     Rouge she was all of thirty years old. She was a rock: crusty
     exterior, with a heart of gold."

     Father Doug Doussan: "We felt the 'rock' on our knuckles; she was
     loving, tough, a woman of conviction, values, inner authority; she
     was strict, never harsh or mean." Father Bob Guste: "We were wary of
     the power of the "evil" eye; her one green eye, one brown, kept us
     in awe." Others witnessed to the power of an extraordinary woman:
     "We learned more than our lessons, fifty years ago. She took the
     boys of Lourdes and turned them into men." "She may have been hard
     of hearing, but her boys went down in crocodile file. We called her
     'Sister Dynamite."' A man in a business suit touching the coffin of
     his fifth grade teacher was heard to say quietly, "Goodbye, my
     love."

     Her power was not limited to boys. In Sister's confirmation class at
     St. Anthony's most of the girls in the class took "Clare" for their

     "Edna May" was one of 14 children. Dorothy Reed, 92, her one
     surviving sister, attended the funeral with her daughter. Edna was
     six and Dorothy twelve when their mother died and the father placed
     four of the youngest at St. Rose Orphanage in Milwaukee. A niece,
     Mary Clare Ziech, now a special education teacher, writes, "I
     remember snowball fights with Sister on her winter visits to
     Wisconsin. She had pretty good aim. Sister visited my school once; a
     group of deaf children ran up, surrounded her, hugged-- and walked
     off. It was mystical."


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